Message Amnesia? Parts of a text thread have disappeared.

Question

Message Amnesia? Parts of a text thread have disappeared.

I have a group text with about 25 participants and a mix of iPhones and other devices.

Recently, although all my side of the conversation history remains, large tranches of the messages from others have disappeared.

To make it more odd, depending on what device I examine, different sections are gone. For example, on my iPhone, everything is gone between yesterday and August 8, then another gap from August 5 to July 11. Meanwhile, on my Mac, everything is gone between yesterday and July 3, then July 1 to June 19, then June 18 to June 3. And on my iPad, there are other gaps that don't correspond to either of the other two devices.

Oh, and the problem seems to be getting worse.

I tried resetting all my devices to no avail.

What gives?

Hardware: iPhone14 Pro (iOS 26.1), MacBook Pro M4 (Sequoia 15.6.1), iPad 3 (iPadOS 18.6.2)

iPhone 14 Pro, iOS 26

Posted on Dec 8, 2025 2:51 PM

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Answer 1

Dec 11, 2025 12:43 AM in response to Carlisle Landel

Your best move:

Disable Messages in iCloud on all devices
Choose the device with the most complete history
Let that device become the “master” copy
Rebuild the database on the other devices
Re-enable Messages in iCloud slowly

This doesn’t guarantee a perfect fix but is currently the most effective method.

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Answer 2

Dec 13, 2025 12:48 PM in response to azaksalmarzur28

All my devices have incomplete, but different records.

Maybe I misunderstand how Messages works, but isn't the message thread held on the Message servers? Why would they therefore be different with each device, and different from the record held by the rest of the thread members?

That being said, how do I designate one of my devices as the "master copy"?

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